Also, I claim no knowledge of our legal system. I look up what I can, and the research is done, but I do not back up what I have written from a legal stand point. However, just because something is wrong does not mean I want it to stay that way. If you catch a boo-boo, please LET ME KNOW!! I will do what I can to [hopefully] fix it, or warn people of the mistake.
Epilogue: Another Day, Another Death
Tuesday, May 5th
Fin closed his eyes, stretched his hands above his head and relaxed. He could smell the beach, the waves, hear kids laughing. He could feel the sun baking him, and he grinned at the peace.
This is life, he thought, enjoying the sensation of the light breeze tickling his bare chest.
"Oh, no, really," said a sarcastic voice. "Take off. That's fine. I worked on my lunch break, but leave all the work to the guy with one eye and a huge headache."
John's voice brought him crashing from his daydream and into the reality of the headquarters. He sighed to himself, figuring next time he wanted to Zen, he'd do it in the bunk room. Or, if he was really desperate, the bathrooms. There was no way his partner would bother him in there.
He opened his eyes and looked at Munch, inwardly grimacing at the upper right side of the man's face. Black and blue with one eye swelled to such an extent that the he'd temporarilly loss use of it. To add insult to injury, his glasses wouldn't fit, leaving him fully exposed to the world, and a little insecure without his usual barrier. Fin was surprised to watch his usual brazen partner become more introverted. He figured the glasses were a psychological filter to the world, and that without them, John felt incomplete.
Then again he could just be a vain prick, he thought smiling to himself.
Three days after the incident and he still shrunk away from the face, but most of it had nothing to do with looks. He hated the fact that Philip Kip had gotten to John. As the bigger of the two partners he'd always felt the more physical one, the shield, if you will. That John had been in there with Stabler instead of him...
He kept blaming Elliot, even though the logical side of him said it wasn't the senior detective's fault. It was John's for getting so close to the psychotic fuck, but he kept thinking that if he had been in there with his partner, it wouldn't have happened.
Then again, had if it had happened with him in the room, Kip would be less at least two of his limbs, and Fin would be less a job. Or at least off active duty pending an interview with the Subordination Committee.
"It was a joke," John said looking up as Fin drew his chair closer to his desk. "You don't really have to. Take your break. Go and dream or whatever."
Fin shook his head and mumbled grumpily under his breath.
Munch nodded, not hearing the words, but understanding why his partner was surly. "The beach again."
"Yeah."
"How many times have I interrupted that one?"
"Too many."
"It doesn't seem to be working."
"I wonder why."
"Why don't you get a new one?"
"Why didn't Kip hit you in your mouth?" His partner snickered a little. Fin knew that it would get a laugh out of his partner, the only reason he said it. Personally, he didn't find it funny, but seeing a bruised smiling Munch was better than just a bruised one.
He stared at the files in front of him as his partner got up to discard his empty paper bag. He was contemplating retreating to the bunk room, the bathroom was just too desperate for his mood right now, when a familiar voice spoke to John.
"Now what happened to that handsome face of yours?"
Fin looked up to find Belle, dressed extraordinarily conservative, in blue jeans and a tee-shirt. He hated it, but she was even better looking now and darker in the late afternoon light than she had been in the wee hours of the morning. He was also surprised to learn that her long hair the other night had been a wig, her real hair cut short in almost a pixie cut. It subtly flaunted a well proportioned face, pretty in it's plainness, yet somehow not losing any of the exotic hints it held before.
He shook his head, disgusted in himself. She was a prostitute, a hooker.
She looked to Odafin, her eyes wide and, he noticed, red. She gave him a small smile. "Don't you watch over him, honey?"
He felt stomach heat from guilt, and saw his partner frown at Belle. John knew Fin took the wounds as a personal failure and had tried to convince him otherwise.
"It was my own fault. Too cocky."
Her smile grew a bit. "Hmm. I just though cops were supposed to take care of their own kind."
"What? Like you take care of yours?" Fin asked coldly, getting up out of his seat, and discarding his own lunch. The bunk room it was.
Belle's eyes filled with tears, and her head dropped, stopping Fin in his tracks. He almost never made women cry, and if he did, it was part of the job. But he still hated it, and cursed himself for bringing Miranda Faulkner's murder into this.
Belle looked straight at him, easily meeting his height in flats, her eyes proud but wounded.. "I know you think Miranda's death is my fault. Well, partially. And I agree. I should have... Oh, I nevermind. She just shouldn't have been the one, you know? It could have been anyone of us, and some of us... Some of us want to die, Detective. Not like her, not like that. I didn't mean-"
She started shaking and put her face in one hand. Her reaction took him by surprise and he was unsure of what to say or do. He was usually a freely comforting person, but here, with her he didn't know what to do. Just because she's a pro, doesn't mean she hasn't got feelings, he thought, scolding himself for his inability to comfort the woman. She's still a person, you know. And yet he couldn't bring himself to even reach out a hand. After a moment her tears subsided, and she looked up to him, her eyes burning with something, but he didn't know what.
She cleared her throat, her voice becoming business like, despite her still leaking eyes. "I came here to give this to you, Detective Tutuola. To you and Detective Munch." She handed Munch a blank envelope. "It's from Jen Popik, Mir's roommate."
"We remember," Munch said softly.
Belle nodded, and the tears began to flow more freely. Without another word, she turned and left. Fin was surprised to find that he had been expecting something from her, but as he thought about it, the expectation seemed to slip away. Fin looked to his partner. "What is it?"
Munch opened the unsealed envelope and pulled out a single page torn from a notebook. He read a bit then looked up at Fin. "It's a page from her suicide letter. It thanks us for finding Miranda Faulkner's killer." He handed the page to Fin and sat at his desk, his face tired and somber, but not disbelieving. "She called the other day. To ask about how the investigation was going. She sounded pleased that we had caught him, but..." John just trailed off.
Remorse, Fin thought, suddenly realizing just what he had seen in Belle's eyes. Remorse and a frustration at the helplessness she must have felt.
He looked at the note in his hands, but decided that he couldn't read it. It was enough to know that she had been glad they had caught the creep that had killed her best friend. He didn't want to read the letter, or even just that bit. He couldn't. Here was a woman who had been so dependent on another to give her hope and dreams, that when this benefactor died, she was too empty to go on living. Fin always became so very depressed when it came to people like that, thinking that some human beings weren't strong enough to find the good in life for themselves.
Maybe Miranda was her good in life. And then she was gone.
He could feel for her loss, but still thought her death was useless and stupid.
He dropped the letter on Munch's desk and walked up the stairs, checking his watch. He still had a good forty minutes of his break, and he was going to spend it in the bunk room, to hell with anyone that disturbed his Zen.
Another day, another death, he thought. Life goes on, everyone scorns their presence and praises their absence. Discarded after use, completely unwanted, and ill-fated. He couldn't understand how anyone would choose that kind of future and stay with it.
Maybe it wasn't entirely a choice.
Bullshit. There was always a choice. A choice to strive for the best, or the choice to give up. The choice to live or die.
But Miranda Faulkner hadn't made that choice.
She was a pro wasn't she.
She was a pro striving for the best. She was quiting. She had her choice taken away from her.
He rubbed his head, not wanting to think of Jen Popik, or Miranda Faulkner, or Belle, or Phillip Kip, or Munch's face... He just needed to get away from it all.
It was time for the beach.
THE END